7. Mate

Orma didn’t know what woke her.

It was still night out. The lamp had been snuffed when Athan came to bed.

She shifted, squinting into the dark, trying to make out his form beside her. The moon must be sleeping because it was particularly black in the room, so she huffed and settled for putting her hand toward him.

She expected a muffled sound in protest. A sleep-filled murmur that she should go back to sleep and they could sort out anything in the morning.

But the bedding was cold, and there were no protestations, and she sat up with a terrible feeling somewhere between the bond and her gut.

It was a patient, that was all. She must have slept deeper than she thought, and he’d be next door, tending to whatever emergency had pulled him away from her.

But the unsettled feeling wouldn’t pass, and the bond was strangely quiet. Almost... remote.

She’d ask Brum what he thought.

There was a slight chill in the air but she did not bother to dig out a shawl from her trunk. All was quiet in the house, and she crept down the stairs, this time her care coming from nerves rather than consideration for her hip. She peeked in the sitting room, but he wasn’t in his chair. Not sprawled out on her chaise.

She grew doubtful. Maybe she should have looked in the spare room after all, to see if perhaps he’d slept poorly and wanted his old bed for company rather than her.

She heard Brum padding through the kitchen, and the sound was more comfort to her than she had expected. She wasn’t alone. Not fully.

There was a hint of light in the kitchen, and she moved as quietly as she could, afraid of disturbing the Brum if he’d settled.

He was on his cushion, his large head settled between his two paws, and he glanced up at her, his tail thumping in welcome.

Orma swallowed, her attention drifting quickly from the Brum, and toward the man seated at the table.

There were books. Many of them. Far more than her father had sent from their initial visit. The papers were unsheathed and spread out across the whole of the tabletop, a few escaping to settle on the floor instead.

His head was buried in his hands, and she crept forward, afraid of startling him. More afraid of knowing what was happening.

He’d been fine. Seemed fine. He’d petted and held her and whispered all the right things about how much he cared for her.

They’d shared a delicious supper after she’d napped for a while, and he’d kissed her sweetly when they’d gone to bed together.

A small, bitter part of her wanted to ask if he was dwelling.

But that was petty. Wretched.

And he was hurting.

He was doing his best to hold it back from her. She could feel that now. His body was tense and every so often his shoulders would heave and it took her longer than it should have to realise he was crying.

Silently.

With his mate’s terrible history laid out in front of him.

He hadn’t waited for her. He’d delved into the entire messy business and she was supposed to be cross about that, wasn’t she? They were supposed to share in it, so she could feel in control of her own records.

Why then was there relief?

He’d left her alone. Gone to her family home and brought back the whole of that dreadful shelf.

Then tormented himself while she slept.

She approached quietly. She should say something. Chide him.

Love him.

That was just the whisper of the bond, surely.

Her heart hammered away in her chest.

Or maybe not.

He was hers, and he was hurting, and while she might not have been the direct cause, it was still for her sake.

She didn’t want to frighten him—if their positions were reversed, she would startle badly if he snuck up behind while she was in distress.

But words were small, and touch was better, and so she settled for pushing as much affection and comfort as she could through the cord between them. He didn’t seem to notice, not until her hand was on his shoulder.

He stiffened. Flinched.

Then brushed at his face with far more force than was necessary as he tried to tamp it all back. “Athan...”

“I know I should have waited for you,” he admitted, a strange dullness in his tone. “You’ve a right to be angry.”

She moved her hand from his shoulder to brush through his hair at the nape of his neck, scratching lightly. “You think I’m angry?”

He made a strange, strangled sort of sound. “I am.” It was barely audible, but a confession she felt through her very bones. Her fingers paused, and she almost asked if he was angry at her.

But paused.

Took a breath.

How many times must he reassure her on that front? He did not think her a disappointment. She did. He did not regret her as his mate. He was angry with her parents, with her healers, but not with her. Never with her. She was a child. She’d been hurt and her trust had been abused, and perhaps she hadn’t been the bravest when she’d reached her majority. But he held none of that against her, and she...

She was going to believe him.

Her attention drifted briefly to the pages in front of him. She swallowed thickly when she saw the diagrams, the careful notes they’d taken about the incisions, the appearance of her womb, underdeveloped given her age. They were hopeful results would prove favourable very quickly. She’d been slow to wake, and it was recommended that for any further procedures, a half-spoon less of tincture be given.

Athan slammed the book closed.

He moved so quickly it startled her, but before she could say anything else, could ask if he was all right, if he needed to talk, or... if she should find someone else he might talk to if it was too difficult for it to be her...

He turned in his seat and wrapped his arms about her middle, burying his face in her torso.

While he cried.

For her.

For what might have been.

She could not recall seeing her father cry. Not once. He’d hold her mother and his jaw would tighten, and he’d look so severe, as if his gaze could abolish any problem if he stared long enough.

“It’s all right to be angry,” Orma murmured because...

Because no one had ever told her that. Always smooth it over. Tuck it away. Remember to be grateful for all the effort everyone took on her behalf. Be brave. Take the medicine. It’ll work this time. She just had to have a little faith.

And somehow along the way, they’d managed to kill that little flame inside of her. The one that knew, that knew with the whole of her being if she could just reach her mate, everything would be all right.

They hadn’t asked, had they?

Athan did.

He wanted to know what she thought. How she felt. Didn’t ask her to shove it away so it wouldn’t hurt anyone else. He wanted her to talk, to share. And it was all so strange and...

Really rather wonderful.

No, they hadn’t killed it. Because she felt it now, strong and urgent. They should have listened. Shouldn’t have assumed they knew better.

Shouldn’t have frightened her into keeping Athan a secret. Should have encouraged her to find him, no matter his station, no matter his blood. Because she needed him, and he was hers, and that was enough.

Her arms came about him, holding him close. “What brought this on?” she prompted, skimming her fingers through his hair. She felt oddly calm. As if there was only so much room for feelings, and Athan was taking them at the moment. And that was just fine with her. “I must say, I did not like waking up to an empty bed.”

That earned a chuckle out of her mate, and he brought his head up, propping his head against her sternum as he looked at her. There were tight lines about his eyes, and she was struck with how little he’d been sleeping. He’d stopped waking her throughout the night to check her breathing and her heart, but perhaps he hadn’t stopped checking on her in other ways. To see if she was still there, still beside him.

“I didn’t like doing it,” he promised her. “But I couldn’t... I wanted to just get it over with. To see it all written out, and then we can tuck them away and move forward.”

Orma nodded, for she felt much the same. “This is more than we brought with us.”

Athan gave a sheepish sort of grimace. “Your father was awake. A little confused perhaps, but he understood well enough.”

Orma took a breath, refusing to be upset that he’d seen her family without her. She was going to trust him. He would look after her, whether or not she was within earshot.

“Athan,” she murmured, touching his cheek gently. “If you feel some regrets, that’s all right, too.” She didn’t want him to have to pretend. Not for her sake.

It was his turn to reach for her. To cup her cheek and hold her still while he held her attention. “I’m upset for you,” Athan clarified. “For your childhood. If there are regrets, is that I couldn’t have endured it for you.”

He had such a way of making her feel things. Where her insides squirmed in a way that was impossibly pleasant. How she grew flustered and found him so endearing, with just a look. A kind word. “Might I confess something to you?”

Something in his tone suggested it would not be more sweetness, not a sheepish admission of his affection for her.

She nodded, because she would deny him nothing. Not when he’d given her everything.

He did not answer immediately. He took a breath, and brushed his thumb against her cheek, and he looked so supremely sad that it made her ache inside. “I’ve been imagining going to the Hall.”

Orma’s breath caught. “Finding a lawmancer. Handing over all of this and trying to find some measure of justice for you.”

Her father was a judicator. One of three. The others were settled in their own towers, doubtlessly aware of the delicate nature of her situation.

Athan wouldn’t know that.

“Athan...” she murmured, not knowing what she meant to say. The concept horrified her. For her private matters to be shown to a stranger. To be talked about, looked at...

It was enough to make her want to be sick.

He ran his hand down her torso, smoothing over her hip. “I do not want your parents banished. Please do not mistake me.”

Her throat felt too tight and her skin itched all over, but she stood her ground because he’d asked her to listen. “It’s the others. The ones that might even now have patients relying on them. And they will sit there, with all the hurt they’ve caused, and think themselves good.”

He bit out the word as if it was a poison, and she could well imagine why. Athan was good. A good man, and an excellent healer. If he’d been summoned to her case, regardless of their status as mates, he would have seen a little girl hurting in ways she’d never known. He’d have talked with her, urged her to share all she could. Found a solution that didn’t involve cutting and...

She wasn’t mutilated. She wasn’t. There were scars, and she’d never bear a child, but it wasn’t the same, was it?

Her eyes burned. Her throat, too.

She would make them tea. It was a meagre skill, and she would have to ask him for help with the stove, but it would give her something to do. Something tangible.

Her feet wouldn’t move. Not when he was still touching her. Looking at her.

Waiting.

For her to accept? To agree to go? To share her story and insist that each of those men be brought before the Hall to face the tribunal?

Her father would be there.

Accusations would land upon him as well. He’d allowed it, hadn’t he? Each and every procedure.

“They did nothing wrong,” Orma reminded him, her voice wooden. “The bond wasn’t complete, therefore it wouldn’t constitute interference.” The words weren’t hers, and Athan seemed to realise it, his eyes narrowing as he sat back.

He almost removed his touch, but he kept a loose hold on her hips as if afraid she’d scamper away from him.

“You believe that?” Athan asked, trying and failing to keep the incredulity from his tone.

Orma looked up at the ceiling and took a breath, holding it until her lungs burned before she released it. “I believe,” she began, trying to choose her words carefully. Trying even harder to keep from being sucked into memories she couldn’t escape. “That I love you for wanting to fight for me. For caring so much about what happened to me.” She took another breath, quicker this time. Managed to bring her eyes down so she might look at him. “I admire your dedication to others. That you’d want to save them from...” her words failed her, so she gestured over the mounds of papers and the horrid books. “As my mate, you’d have a right to petition the court. To claim interference. You might even win.”

His mouth opened, but she shook her head. “But I love my family. I do not know what that says about me, or if it is some failing on my part that I do not wish to betray them, but I don’t. There have been none like me for generations. No one else will endure what I did. If you go, if you tell of what happened, you will go alone.”

It hurt just to say it. To feel a wedge driven between them, a piercing, tearing sort of pain because the bond was badly jostled. They were supposed to discuss matters. Compromise. But on this...

She closed her eyes, willing the awful feeling to go away. To bring the calm back, the urge to be the one to comfort instead of desperately wanting him to soothe her. To pet and murmur until all was quiet.

She couldn’t do that. Couldn’t cry and whimper.

She needed to speak for herself. Needed to be more than a patient hiding in her bed.

Athan brought his arms about her.

Tugged her forward.

Not to settle across her lap as she’d done before, but to straddle him as she sank down with a startled gasp.

They were nearly at eye level, and she searched for his anger. She wasn’t supposed to make declarations like that. She should be quiet and yielding, should support him in what he thought best.

Isn’t that what Mama did?

Or... was it?

That’s how she was in public, but everyone had heard some of their stronger arguments as they seeped beneath their door, back when her bedroom was located nearer the others.

She should stop talking before she made matters worse, but they kept pouring out. Much like her tears always had. She wasn’t certain she liked this better.

“This is my life,” she insisted, brushing her hand against one of the piles. She didn’t swipe it onto the floor, but she very nearly wanted to. “Mine. And... I know it affects you, please don’t think I don’t realise that, but...”

“Orma,” Athan cut in, brushing his lips against hers ever so briefly. “Orma,” he repeated, because her breath was in short little pants. His hand smoothed up her back, then down again. Over and over. Until she could breathe again. In and out.

Because he was doing it with her.

They were all right.

He wasn’t angry.

She was allowed to tell him what she thought. This was a discussion, not an argument.

He wanted to go to the Hall.

She wanted to fly out the window and disappear into the great mountains beyond.

“You have been deprived of too much already,” Athan continued, when at last she could coax her eyes into focusing on his features rather than her own imaginings. “It was only a thought, not a plan. A wish.” He smoothed her hair behind her ears. “But if the sacrifice is you and your happiness, then it will be one that is unfulfilled.”

A weight settled in her chest. “I want you to have what you want,” Orma reminded him. “I don’t want to get in the way.”

He huffed out a breath and shook his head, and there were whispers of a chuckle hidden at the edges. “I want you.” He kissed her, just once. So softly she might not have thought it real except she’d kept her eyes open and she knew he’d moved. “I want you to be happy.”

A strange sort of impasse. The same desire, but both so certain they were in the other’s way.

She let herself shiver. Let herself feel the uncertainty and the pressing worry that no matter what she tried, she would make this man miserable.

Then she swallowed.

Took a breath.

And kissed him.

Perhaps he was content with almost non-existent kisses, but she wasn’t. She could fret. She could state her intentions and they might not perfectly align with his.

And they would kiss anyway.

Because they belonged to each other, and this was right and real and when he answered her hesitation with active participation...

She knew she’d done right.

Perhaps she should be troubled by what was spread out beside them. Should be considerate of the Brum nestled by their feet.

Tomorrow, she would be. But now, in this not quite night, not quite morning, she would kiss her mate and make her claim, and she refused to doubt herself. Doubt him.

The bond glowed. She didn’t have to look. Not with her eyes tightly closed and her attention more focused on his lips against hers, the feel of his fingers through her hair as she clutched him closer. Had she moved? She couldn’t remember?

He broke away first. Which would not be all right, except that he nuzzled against her cheek and pressed kisses against her jaw while she was left to bring in tight, shivery breaths because she was becoming more than aware she was straddling his lap. “You said that you loved me,” Athan murmured into her skin. “Did you mean it?”

Had she? She couldn’t remember. Everything was a blur. But maybe that was something she’d learned to do. To forget during times of stress. To shove it away so it couldn’t hurt her anymore than necessary.

She could tell him that. She could pretend he wasn’t looking at her from the corner of his eye. Pretend she couldn’t feel the way he craved her answer so desperately through the bond.

She couldn’t give him that if she didn’t mean it. She couldn’t lie, not even to please him.

It settled over her so gently she didn’t even have time to be afraid of it.

She turned her cheek so she could press a kiss to wherever she might reach, and was rewarded when he brought his lips back to hers. Just once. Teasing. Coaxing.

Waiting.

For her answer.

Always patient, her Athan. Even when she could feel his insides twisting as he tried to make it all right if she rescinded it.

Perhaps it wasn’t the sort of love she’d have when they were old. When they’d built their entire life together. Found the Brum a mate and filled the corners of their home with over-large offspring.

It wasn’t even the sort her parents had—built of time and dedication and a loyalty that seemed unending.

But it was a start. Something tender. Untried. Or... nearly so.

But it was enough.

Enough to make it genuine when she looked him in the eye. When she pushed as much of those aching affections back at him so he might feel them for himself. “I meant it,” she promised him, her voice soft and her heart a great deal more vulnerable than she cared to admit.

He made a strange sound in the back of his throat as he brought them back together. Not a hum, not a groan...

A purr.

Soft and gentle.

That turned her insides all warm as he embraced her, his arms so tight about her she could scarcely breathe. It didn’t matter. Not when she felt all his joy rushing through her as steadily as the stream in his back garden.

She’d done that.

Done something right at last.

“I have loved you from the moment you agreed to meet Brum,” Athan confessed, his lips near her ear. “All nervous determination. It was glorious.”

Orma tried to draw back. Or... tried to want to. “You should pick something else,” she argued. “There was nothing glorious about it.”

His purr grew even more determined, punctuated by kisses he pressed against her jaw. Her cheek. The bridge of her nose.

Absurd things that shouldn’t set her heart racing as they did. Shouldn’t leave her fingers twitching to clutch at his shoulders and urge him to do more.

“All right,” Athan teased, nipping at her earlobe. Which was decidedly inappropriate and should not have sent a shiver through her like it did. “Then it was the night when I woke to find you curled against my back, holding onto my arm like it was the only thing keeping you tethered to the world.”

Her cheeks felt hot, or maybe it was all of her. “This is a mortifying conversation.”

“Is it?” Athan countered, skimming his fingers through her hair while he played with whatever bits of skin appealed to him at the time. “They are some of my fondest memories.”

There was no apology in his tone. Nothing to suggest it was all a jest, and he was merely playing with her. “That’s...” she didn’t know what she meant to say, other than she felt flustered and bothered, and she really was dreadful at this. Being a mate. Being... amorous.

If that’s what it was?

Did he feel it, too?

She closed her eyes and forced herself to think. Or... it wasn’t about thinking. It was about feeling. Not just the way his skin felt against hers. The way he sought knots in her hair and teased them free with excellent care. It was the bond she wanted. To peek into his thoughts and his emotions, so she would know she wasn’t alone.

He nuzzled against her, and that was distracting, and she was doing something, and he should just be patient and let her work. “What are you doing?” he murmured, his voice deep and soft and only for her.

Could he feel that? The way she was tugging, inspecting. It was harder than she expected, to sort out what was hers and what was his and...

Oh.

Because it was all a jumble of sameness. Of warmth and desire and those little hints of sorrow about the edges, about what had been and, most importantly, what might have been.

“I just...” she began, then stopped herself. Was she really going to answer him?

But he pulled back enough so she could look him in the eye, and he was curious and gentle and she was safe. With him. To tell him her thoughts and not simply rely on the bond to tend the difficult parts. “I wanted to know if you felt like I did,” she answered, so softly he might not have heard if he wasn’t so near.

But he was.

She was perched on his lap. Indecently so.

Her nightdress had slid upward to accommodate the position, and she was acutely aware of all of it. The feel of him beneath her, the press of her torso against his.

The way his kisses sent tingles through every part of her.

He gave an almost soundless laugh, more breath than sound. “And how is that?” Athan urged, pressing his forehead to hers. He could look for himself, as she had done. Could play with the tendrils floating about them, glimmering and pulsing in time with her heartbeat. With the pulse lower down she couldn’t quite account for.

She sat back, certainly not going to answer that question. She did not care he was a healer, did not care he was her mate. There were surely matters that one did not discuss—and something so personal as... as this would be one of them.

His hand cupped her cheek, and he smiled at her, and her insides felt as liquid as she leaned into his touch, the bond flaring. Soothing. Quieting the parts of her that were nervous, that were insistent, she stop her revelling and consider where this might be going.

She was supposed to care about such things, wasn’t she? Keep them apart, keep him away.

Don’t kiss too long, don’t let touches linger. Not when...

Because she couldn’t...

Why couldn’t she?

It hadn’t seemed fair before. When he didn’t know. When he could have gone into their... their intimacy thinking a child might come of it. He’d be angry and hurt, and she wouldn’t have blamed him for it, but that needn’t be a worry any longer.

“I want to kiss you,” she explained, warring with herself. With the parts of her that had been forged in her upbringing and the ones that were shiny and new. Glistening with promise. “I want to kiss you and not fret about stopping.”

His eyes glittered in the lamplight. “You may do whatever you like with me,” Athan urged her, offering one too-short kiss to seal his pronouncement.

Why was it so difficult to give him the same? To be confident in his restraint, in his care? It all seemed so silly with the bond lodged so firmly in her chest, reminding her that all her fears had come from others. That Athan had done nothing to earn her mistrust.

He’d gone to her home, hadn’t he? Retrieved the rest of her medical texts. Sat here in the dark and read them instead of waiting for them to discuss it together.

Orma took a breath.

She refused to harbour that. Refused to give any of that resentment hold. It was over and done, and she was glad. He’d spared her the little particulars, kept her from having to endure those memories.

Orma moved closer to him, almost ready to continue their kiss. But she hesitated, drawing back with a small frown. “Not here,” she murmured. “Not with all of that.” She nodded toward the books and papers. Tamped down the urge to toss them into the kitchen fire.

He brought them, he could hide them away again.

She wanted something else.

He made to pick her up, but she shook her head, taking a step toward the kitchen doorway. She would go on her own. Not the invalid, but the woman. His mate. Who’d found her bed empty and cold, and gone to retrieve what was hers.

She looked down at the Brum and gave him a stern look. “Don’t go reading any of that. It’s private.” Orma glanced at Athan and saw the guilt there. “Just for us two,” she reiterated, squeezing his hand.

Brum thumped his tail against the kitchen floor, seemingly unbothered he was about to have the kitchen to himself.

It was a testament to Athan’s preoccupation that he did not think to turn down the lamp, and she clicked her tongue at him as she went back to tend to it herself. “Distracted?” Orma teased, coming back and taking his hand again. If the stove needed anything for morning, she didn’t know what it was. And her own thoughts were drifting upstairs, an anticipation building low in her belly.

“You are terribly distracting,” Athan agreed. “My work suffers terribly. And you’ve stolen my foot-warmer.” That was true. Brum had taken to sleeping beside her, and Athan complained of it often—always with a glimmer that suggested his protestations were only partly genuine.

She wondered how long it might be before he threatened to get himself another creature, one whose loyalties could not be so easily purchased with a few breakfast crumbs.

“We’ll get you some very fine socks,” Orma countered. “As for your work, perhaps we might commission my aunt to paint a portrait. A very large one. You might hang it in your office and see my scowling that you haven’t finished your work.” Her hold on his hand tightened as they made it to the stairs. “Because if you had, you would be home again with me.”

Athan hummed.

Tugged at her hand until she leaned toward him and placed a kiss to his expectant lips. It was easy—he’d let her begin her trek up the stairs, and it was strange and satisfying to be at eye level with him. “What was that for?” Orma asked. It was dim in the stairway, and she didn’t like that she could not fully make out his expression.

“Because I like when you call this home,” Athan explained, his voice low. Warm. Which paired especially well with the feelings that flowed so freely through the bond. There were trickles of excitement, a great deal of anticipation, but most of all...

Love.

A great deal of it.

It made her smile, because it was pointless to pick apart who had more of it. It was simply... there. As real as the threads that wove between them, pulsing and flexing and catching what bits of light they could to sparkle pleasantly.

Orma hummed.

Then startled, when his free hand was suddenly at her waist. Or... not quite. Her hip. No, her lower back.

Lower still. “What are you doing?” she asked when she could no longer pretend her back was involved at all.

“It’s dark,” Athan reminded her with far too much innocence in his voice for where his hand was currently located. But it crept back upward, to what might be considered a more respectable spot, and Orma was flustered, which she highly suspected had been his aim.

She would never do that, would she? Just... touch, simply because she could?

She swallowed. Considered.

Those were old thoughts. Sensibilities that were not necessarily hers. She could like what she liked, and do what she pleased, presuming Athan found it as agreeable as she did.

Did she like to be touched there? Like that he wanted to feel her curves for himself?

Her cheeks flushed and her breath grew shorter.

Maybe.

There was no hurrying on the stairs. Not when she was determined to take them on her own. She didn’t push Athan along, did not fuss when he kept pace with her. Although she could have, if he was going to respond as he did before, silencing objections with fervent kisses.

He occupied himself with memorising the lines of her back, the little dips of her spine. Fiddled with the soft, downy feathers he found where wing joined skin.

Which made her squirm all over because it tickled in the strangest way, and she hadn’t been tended to in such a manner since her last moult. There were still five steps to take, and this wasn’t the seductive walk she’d imagined. Or rather, he seemed intent on doing the seducing.

“All right,” she said at last, then leaned backward with full confidence he would catch her before her wings instinctively took over.

He made a strange sort of sound, evidently not expecting the sudden movement, but she was correct in her estimation and he plucked her up with great efficiency, chiding her about fairness and giving proper warning if she intended to do any such thing again, and what if he had dropped her? He never would forgive himself.

She hummed, her hip pleased with her choice, and her heart even more so, because it left her fingers free to trespass into the collar of his shirt and tease whatever skin she found there.

He swallowed thickly, and there were no more chastisements.

Which was fine with her. She did not want an argument. She wanted his kisses. His touch. Wanted to see what she liked for her own sake, without thought of proprieties.

Only the two of them would ever know.

It excited her. Made her nervous as he brought her through to the bedroom. It was dark even there, and old lectures about proper sleep and routines flittered through her mind. Even now, he’d tuck her in and curl up beside her, if that’s what she wanted. He would give no complaint. Just a wistful little sigh before he kissed her temple and promised her he wasn’t cross.

Did he plan on heading to the infirmary in the morning? Perhaps this was selfish.

He placed her on the bed, her arms about his neck.

Perhaps she wanted to be selfish.

She did not let him go. Held her to him and kissed him with as much enthusiasm as she might offer.

He lost his footing, which made for an awkward sort of tumble when he half-fell on top of her, his wings rustling as they tried to right him. His shoulder dropped once toward her collarbone, so she released a breathless sound as some of the air was knocked out of her. “Orma, I am so sorry,” Athan blurted, one hand on her side as he scrambled upward, face stricken as he set assessing eyes over her that weren’t heated and impassioned any longer, but looking for wounds, for hurts, and how he might mend them.

“Don’t you dare,” she chided, refusing to lose him to the healer’s side. Not when she was ready to claim him as her mate. She reached for his face, sitting up as he backed away, holding him to her. “I’m fine,” she insisted. Kissed him once. Then again, because he was looking at her in that dubious way, certain she was simply trying to appease him.

Impatient, she reached for his hand and brought it to her breast, holding it there. Why it should distract him, she couldn’t say, but there was no denying the hitch in his breath as his eyes flickered downward to watch her.

Boldness was new, but it did not feel like a stranger. It was just a part of her, buried away and conditioned into silence. Ready and willing now that she called for it.

“Am I lying?” she asked gently, tracing her fingers against the back of his hand, gratified when he swallowed thickly. “You can look.”

It wasn’t the invitation she’d meant. Not in the least. She’d meant for him to poke about the bond in search of bruises and unacknowledged pains.

Instead, he reached out with his free hand and woke the lamp, the flicker of firelight a sudden change to the dim room. She blinked, not expecting it in the least.

More particularly when he delved for the ties at her throat. When he took looking to mean at her rather than the bond between them.

Her throat ached, and she was nervous, but she did not stop him. Not when he was looking at her, as if she was the most precious thing in all the world.

As if he could not quite believe the turn of the night.

That she could captivate him so entirely with a nightdress and a simple string of ties, which he plucked at with fingers that shook ever so slightly as he undid them one by one.

He couldn’t see the threads that tangled there. The glow. They were beautiful, shimmering and all alight when he touched them. It was enough to leave her breathless, refusing to close her eyes to the sensation even though the reflex was there. To savour, to revel. To let him work and trust his exploration would bring her nothing but pleasure.

But she wanted to see the threads. Wanted to see what he would do next as he parted the fabric of her nightdress and looked at her more intimately than ever before.

She was far from perfect. He’d see that, too.

And she supposed that’s what she was truly waiting for. When his touches would grow more hesitant. When he’d notice the intermittent scars that punctuated softer flesh.

Some healed well, all silvery and smooth. Others were knotted and sore, a constant reminder of their origins.

Her chest had healed poorly. The skin was too taut; the wound stretching with every breath. It didn’t matter how many salves they’d put, how faithfully she’d been instructed to massage the tissue as it healed so it might flatten and quiet.

Orma waited.

Watched him.

Did not expect for him to place a hand between her breasts. Did not expect for him to press lightly downward, urging her to lie back.

She obliged, her heart racing beneath his palm.

He followed, covering her. Not with the blanket as he might if they were going to sleep, but hovering above her. He was careful of his weight as his hand retreated to its place where she’d set it against her breast, and his head dropped to press a kiss on the scar. On the bond. Which fluttered and pulsed and almost drove her to distraction. She had known she was sensitive there, but hadn’t realised what it might mean for moments like this. When she wanted to squirm away and press closer all at once. When the nerves she’d cursed had brought nothing but pains that ranged from prickling to sharp daggers in her chest.

A sound caught in her throat as his mouth opened. Not to talk to her, but to press another open-mouthed kiss to the tangled flesh, which nestled him against the cords binding them together. His affection was genuine, and if there was a sorrow about it, it was not punctuated with a complaint. He did not find her wanting.

He was pleased with his mate. Pleased with her acceptance of him.

His fingers moved against her breast, pressing. Gripping lightly. Then a bit more firmly when the sparks of sensation turned from an odd sort of pressure to flickers of something more. Something tantalising.

Should she be doing something? Probably. She’d meant this as a seduction, after all, and she was being a rather passive participant at the moment. Not that Athan seemed to mind, as he was busy moving his attentions from the scars themselves to press kisses to softer flesh, to determining what it felt like to press a kiss to the small nipple he found there.

Then, to her great mortification, he licked it.

Then blew gently over the wetness. And that wasn’t fair, because she’d just been about to tell him that he should keep his tongue to himself, but how was she meant to do that when it felt like that?

He was rewarded with pebbled skin and a glower from his mate, but he wasn’t looking at her, just teasing new sensations from her.

Which was good. Was what she wanted.

The bond sent a little thrill, finally satisfied with their join purpose. But Orma felt a niggling sense of... something.

She reached for him. Buried her hands in his hair and held him to her while he placed long kisses on her, and was rewarded with his hum.

That was all. Much better. She needed to touch, to not lie there like she was being subjected to something, but move and urge and distract him with little pleasures, too.

She ran her fingertips lightly behind his ears, where his hair met the skin of his neck, and his kisses wavered. His eyes were closed and how many nights had he spent doing much the same to her, all while hoping their roles might be reversed?

She really must pay better attention. Make sure he was taken care of in all the ways she could offer.

“You’re going to put me to sleep if you keep doing that,” Athan warned, propping his chin on her sternum and looking up at her. “Is that your aim?”

She curled her fingers about his ear and felt more affection for him than she thought possible. “No,” she soothed, just in case he was worried she’d changed her mind already about their aim. “I just so happen to like touching you.” She canted her head, certain of the answer but wanting to hear it from him. “Is that bad?”

He hummed, pressing his lips back against her skin as he made from the delicate skin between her breasts back up to her mouth. “Never,” he insisted, eyes full of something very near to delight. She was supposed to have protested the lamp, because it was one thing to be with him in the dark, where scars and imperfections might be lost in the shadows. But for the moment, she was glad, because she liked to see him this way.

Happy, she decided.

Not merely content. Or pleased. Or any of the placid, mild feelings that were encouraged in her other home.

He was happy, and he smiled into their kiss, and he made no protest when her hands delved to his shirt, to the ties at the shoulders, the knots that kept it from hanging open indecently while he worked.

Then grew frustrated, because who taught him how to make these sorts of knots? She pulled the usual side, and fiddled with the other, but rather than give easily as hers did, it earned only a firmer tangle.

“I question your skills,” Orma protested, very nearly wanting to push away his head as he placed kisses down her throat so she could properly see what she was doing.

“My skills?” Athan murmured, placing another kiss. Then another. Seemingly unbothered by her frustration. “Which ones? Hopefully not at pleasing you.”

She gave one knot a tug to draw his attention. “ These skills,” Orma insisted. “You tie them wrong. They won’t come apart.”

He chuckled at her, which was not at all what she wanted, because she was supposed to be alluring and bewitching while she undressed him. “Undressed many men, have you?”

She might have scowled except he wasn’t looking at her, but was busy pulling her shift to better expose her breasts to his view. They really weren’t all that interesting when he wasn’t licking and blowing and doing all sorts of scandalous things to them. They wouldn’t swell as she grew with child, wouldn’t soften and look all womanly like her sister’s did after her first.

She took a breath.

Released the thought along with the air.

It was sad, and she could be sorry, but she needn’t dwell. Athan said so.

“Of course not,” Orma retorted, and really, he shouldn’t be making her cross when they were supposed to be loving.

Athan hummed, and brought one finger to trail across the flat of her nipple, while the other attended to the line that formed between her brows. It really was the oddest sort of sensation, one of a fond, teasing tenderness, the other a distracting reminder of their lascivious activities.

“The order is reversed,” Athan explained, and at least he wasn’t laughing at her any longer. “Compared to when you are doing it for yourself.”

Her throat tightened. “Oh.”

He kissed her lips once before he smiled at her. “I do have some experience in the matter. There is no need to be embarrassed.”

Her mouth grew dry.

And she absolutely refused to be jealous.

It wasn’t like she wasn’t aware there were... dalliances. Highly discouraged by parents and grandsires alike, but it happened. She even remembered her brother returning home, somewhere between the cusp of night ending and morning beginning, her father’s voice carrying through the tower as he chastised him for making use of one of those places.

She’d asked her mother the next day, who’d grown misty-eyed and at first informed her she needn’t trouble herself about such matters, but then changed her mind.

Orma might need to prepare herself. In case her mate grew impatient, and he found comfort in some of the merchant districts, where foreign women who cared nothing for mates and the sanctity of bonds not yet created might enjoy a night of company.

She tried to picture Athan in such a place. With such a woman.

Then did anything she could to not picture such a thing.

Athan shifted, bringing his hand to pinch her chin lightly as he waited for her to open her eyes and look at him. “Where did you go just now?” he asked, always so careful of her.

She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t meet his eye. She was being silly, and far too young, but it was merely another reminder of how much life he had lived while she... hadn’t.

“I didn’t realise you’d been with anyone else,” she admitted, her voice so small it was barely like speaking at all.

His mouth dropped open, and suddenly it wasn’t enticing touches and teasing kisses, but she was being pulled into his arms and squeezed tightly. “That is not what I meant.” He huffed out a breath, and he was shaking, and if he laughed, if he teased, she was going to wriggle out of this bed and sleep on the chaise with Brum. “Examinations, Orma. Which I shouldn’t even be bringing up either, now that I think of it, but surely that’s better than...”

He placed a kiss on her temple and was petting her hair, as if trying to smooth away the upset between them as efficiently as he possibly could. “I haven’t. With anyone else. I swear to you.”

Her eyes burned, and she could not account for why. “Oh,” she repeated, and no, she did not want to think about healers and tables and him looking over wounds and battered skin, but it was better than the alternative.

He shouldn’t have to swear. He shouldn’t have to look at her with worry that she would find fault with him, whether or not there had been a woman before her.

But in some secret part of her, she could acknowledge she was pleased. Did that make her horrid? She didn’t know. “I would have loved you anyway,” she promised him, because that was what mattered, didn’t it?

He hummed and leaned back a little, and the relief was pronounced through the bond. “Thought I’d ruined everything for a moment.”

Orma smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “You couldn’t do that,” she disagreed, but it only earned her a rueful smile.

“You think that now, maybe. Until I’ve come home too late for the third night in a row, or I left my boots too near the doorway and you trip over them.” He frowned, obviously imagining it, and he very nearly rose off her to go find them, needing to make sure she’d be safe.

Orma caught him before he might do any such thing and tugged him back to her. Pressed and fussed until he was using her as a pillow and she might play with his hair, trying to rekindle what had temporarily cooled.

“Say it again, please,” Athan murmured.

She paused, considering what he meant, then felt a warmth fall over her when she realised his intention. “I love you,” she reminded him, curling her fingers through his hair, urging him to look at her. To see the truth of it, to feel the whole.

She did not ask when he last heard such a thing. She did not have to.

It was in the ache she felt echoed through the bond.

It was in the way he curled himself about her, tightening his hold and keeping her as close as he possibly could.

He’d waited. Alone. Wondering where she might be, when she might come to him. He’d filled his home and his days with use and purpose, but it wasn’t the same as family.

As having someone to remind he was loved. That she cared for him for more than what he might do. How well he might heal.

“More than the Brum,” Orma continued, a strange lump of fondness nestling in her throat as she looked at him. “Which is saying quite a lot.” She swallowed thickly. “Although he cannot speak for himself, so perhaps that is presumptuous of me.”

Athan moved. Nuzzled his face into her middle, then brought his eyes up to hers. “We shall pretend it is more,” he agreed, eyes shimmering in the lamplight. “Because it pleases me to believe so.”

Orma’s lips quirked into a smile, and their little upset passed as if it had never been except...

Not quite. Because an understanding lingered. Of what he needed of her. More than touches and kisses. He needed her words. Needed them to fill too many years of silence. It did not come naturally, but she would try, for his sake.

And, maybe, for hers too.

“I am surprised he leaves us alone in here,” Orma mused, running her finger down the back of his neck, pleased with her reward as he shivered at her touch.

Athan snorted, teasing her shift down as far as he could make it. He’d run out of ties, and it was already scandalously open from his earlier tugging. He’d have to take it all the way off next, if he wanted more of her.

Her breath grew a little shorter, but she would not rush him. He’d find the ties on her shoulders when he was ready. And she would be pliant and keep quite still, and let him take in the sight of her, scars and all.

She would not even complain about the lamp.

Or... she would try not to.

“I knew there would be limits to my mate’s patience,” Athan breathed into her skin. “Sharing our bed with Brum might have been unreasonable.”

Her muscles tightened when he kissed the delicate skin beneath her breasts. She was smooth there, with no puckering scar to distract him.

And it felt...

She took a calming breath, but found it rather insufficient. It tickled, and bothered, and she wasn’t supposed to like it as much as she did.

“You were worried she would prefer his company to yours, admit it,” Orma teased, feeling flustered and out of sorts, but unwilling to do anything about it. “I suspect he would make a welcome bedfellow in the winters. Perhaps I will keep that in mind.”

It was a tease with no possibility of genuine threat, but he surged upward, enough that his fingers might delve at the knots on her shoulders and subdue the last of her ties. “He will be banished to the garden,” Athan pronounced, with as little weight as her own reflection. Athan would deny the Brum nothing.

And that was part of why she loved him.

“None of our family will be banished anywhere,” Orma declared, just in case he needed to hear it. Because she was his mate, not some faceless girl he’d dreamed of, trying to make little considerations about his life before she existed to object to them.

She was real, and whole, and a little battered, but she could let him keep his house and keep his Brum and there would be room for the lot of them.

“Agreed,” Athan said, his tone slightly absent as he delicately pulled at her shift. She didn’t help. Didn’t shift about and make it easier for him. There was something thrilling about watching him work, feeling fabric that had just been a simple nightdress a moment before suddenly being something more.

It was a whisper against her skin. It was the tickle of the ties as he used them to brush against her collarbones.

It was the slide and pull as he brought it downward, trapping her arms as the cuffs caught.

Which made her squirm. Not in the playful manner they’d had before, but anxiously. “Athan,” she murmured, not wanting to make a fuss, but her heart was racing.

“Ah,” Athan soothed. “I have forgotten some.” He brought her hand up for his inspection, then curved it so he might release the small knot that held her sleeve together. He did not linger, just released first one cuff, then the other, before he placed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, helping the fabric fall away. “Better?”

She smiled a little apologetically as she nodded. “I felt stuck,” she admitted. Which wasn’t the word she wanted, but the one she was willing to give. Trapped was closer to the truth. Held down. And evidently, that was something she couldn’t bear any longer.

Athan brought his thumb to her bottom lip. “You can tell me anything,” Athan reminded her. “For your comfort, or simply for the sake of doing so.” He smoothed his hand over her shoulder, bared now to his touch. “But perhaps we needn’t keep them in the room with us.”

He glanced at her worriedly, and she took a moment to understand his meaning.

She needn’t expound. Not unless she wanted to. She did not need to dredge up the reasons. The history behind a scar or a fear. It was enough for her to say she didn’t like it. Enough for her to grow uncomfortable, and he would change it. Do anything she asked.

She relaxed, her smile a little easier. “All right,” she agreed, and was rewarded with a kiss as he smoothed his touch from her shoulder all the way back down to the tips of her fingers before twining his hand with hers.

“Better?” he asked, brushing his lips against her cheek while he squeezed her hand.

She sighed, so very grateful for him. “Better,” she granted. Would there be more moments like that? She didn’t like to think so, but perhaps it was better to be prepared. To acknowledge them and move on rather than... dwell.

She did tend to do that, didn’t she?

She nestled closer, grateful she liked his weight on her. That she could be close without feeling confined. His presence meant safety, meant kindness and understanding. “I love you,” she repeated, and that time was for her own sake rather than for his.

He brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the tips of her fingers.

Then her wrist.

Where the threads conjoined, fusing into a cord. Where he’d played and she’d grown frightened because she liked it far more than was reasonable.

Orma swallowed, more than aware of what it felt like to have him touch there. She watched as the threads shimmered at his retreat, as they flickered and pulsed, as he blindly sought the most critical point.

Blind, but not. He might not see them for himself, but he could feel it through her. From the bond that flared, from the quickening of her breath, from the way she kept so very still as she waited to see what he would do next.

He kept his thumb pressed against where the threads tangled, then he followed the line up her arm. She refused to think about books and diagrams. About what he might have committed to memory and why he had.

Was he thinking of this? Of what such knowledge might be used for? Or was this all intuitive?

She took a breath. Then another.

She would be present. She would trust him.

She made a little sound when he reached the next tangle. Just above the joint of her elbow, which he kissed with a hum of recognition when she squirmed slightly to be touched so.

If he could learn, so might she. When she urged him onto his back and captured his wrist and committed the feel of him to memory. When she christened their bond with claiming kisses.

But this was lovely, too. To wait and wonder. To feel the added pulse when he found another spot at the curve of her shoulder. Her throat. Downward. All while holding onto her wrist and that first-found point.

“You must think me selfish,” Athan murmured into her middle. Her shift had been pulled to just below her waist, and he seemed determined to make use of his new discovery. “For I did not help you with my ties and now I get to have you so.” Another kiss, this time to just above her navel. Her scar was lower, but she tensed all the same, then quieted. He could look. Athan could see anything he liked. He would love her just the same.

“Most inconsiderate,” Orma agreed, and then he was pulling her shift lower still, and there were her hipbones. The very edge of her scar was visible, but she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, not quite ready to watch his expression as he took it in. It healed well. She’d been promised. It would fade so well she’d hardly need to think of it.

They’d been wrong about that, too.

Her body liked to keep its scars. They did not fade and flatten, but pinked and twisted, ensuring they would stay a constant reminder to keep the memories close.

There was no mistaking how pleased he was with each bit of her he uncovered. She waited for the threads to turn to pity, for his ardour to cool in favour of playing the healer.

He did not tug her shift lower, so he might inspect her scar. Instead, he went leftward, seeking the profusion of her hipbone, smoothing his lips over the skin just above. She jolted. Drew in a sharp, startled breath.

Watched as she could just make out the corners of his mouth pulling upward in a smile as he did it again, this time holding her hips down gently so she couldn’t move away so easily.

She had never imagined what a kiss might do. That gentle suction and a warm hand in hers could illicit such responses. Had never really imagined anything but chaste kisses at all. A cheek. A peck on the lips. Nothing like this.

Had he?

When he read through his texts—not hers, but the ones during his apprenticeship. When he was in that cusp of being grown, all anxious anticipation that even the very day of majority, and his mate would be there, ready to celebrate.

She ran her fingers through his hair and was rewarded with his hum of approval, and he released his pleasant torment of the little spot on her hip.

“Happy?” Athan asked, looking up at her. He did not appear worried. His eyes were warm and soft, and a lump settled in her throat to be regarded so.

Happy wasn’t the word. It was there about the edges, along with the thrill of her newfound freedom. “Bothered,” she decided, forcing down the urge to tilt her hips and ask for more of his kisses.

Athan chuckled, skimming his lips across the very edge of her shift, catching the edge of her scar. It prickled, and it wasn’t the same pleasant awareness and her breath caught until he settled back over her other hipbone. “Is that what I’m doing? Bothering you?”

She swallowed, her thoughts a jumble of sensation as he kissed, fully aware that this was lovely and she should be grateful for his attentiveness, but it wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t low enough, wasn’t stroking at the need that suddenly felt terribly urgent. “Yes,” she managed to get out, growing more frustrated than was reasonable. It wasn’t fair that he did not seem to share in the discomfort. That he could make lazy work of his exploration while she twitched and pulsed and needed.

Wanted.

That’s what this was. It was love and desire and it was all right because he was Athan and he’d be patient with her. Would do anything she asked of him if she was only brave enough to do so.

Was she?

It was indecent. Not at all how a lady would act, or even worse, not something she might say.

But she wasn’t in a fine tower. Her ancestors would be horrified enough by her new station as a healer’s mate, and she doubted there was more she could do to offend them.

She took a breath and took the hand that held hers and brought it where she wanted it. Covered still by cloth, but aching in a way that was new and no less troublesome. “Can you...” she began, but words failed her. She was flushed all over, and she was shocked at herself and a little bit horrified. But beneath all that, was him. He was... proud of her? Which was strange and unsettling, but she held onto it with as much strength as she could muster. She did not have to be a lady. She did not have to come from an impeccable bloodline. Orma just had to be his.

And he would be hers.

He cupped her through the fabric, and her hand fell away, unable to bear the idea she’d pushed him there. His first touches were tentative, and she should have told him to take off her shift entirely. To strip off his own clothing while he was at it. To give her time to stir his blood and to make him want, so she wasn’t alone in her audacity.

She might have done a lot of things, but his touch grew more insistent, and it suddenly became very difficult to imagine doing anything at all but... this. It wasn’t quite right, not just yet, but it was enough to keep her still, to wait, to let him settle into a rhythm that pleased her. She should care about ruined shifts and hadn’t her mother warned about fluids in one of their talks ages ago? She couldn’t quite recall now.

He adjusted his position, and she bit her lip hard because there was the source of it, the pulsing, the wanting. It had just been a brush, and Athan glanced upward to gage her reaction as he passed over it again. She felt so sensitive already, she couldn’t quite imagine how much more it might feel if the fabric was no longer between them. Should she ask for that? Or be content with having his touch directly where she most desired it.

Would there be shimmers of the bond, even there? She remembered being a little girl. Stripping off her clothing and stealing to the looking glass. She hadn’t thought much of anything about where the tangles landed, wanted only to dance about her room and watch the threads follow, glimmering in the firelight.

Her mother had come in a moment later, urging her back into her nightdress because one did not dance in the nude, not when there were gowns for such things, and wouldn’t she rather twirl a pretty skirt?

Another touch, this time firmer, a little more sure of himself. And it was not a conscious choice to move, but she did, her hip twitching and arching. Or it might have done, if Athan had not placed a little more weight on her, holding her fast. “This all right?” he asked, because she did not like to be caged, did not like to be tied down, but this wasn’t that. This was Athan, and he wanted to please her, and she nodded because words felt terribly far away when he was tending to her.

With her assent, he tugged down the fabric just enough that he could place a kiss to the scar across her middle. Small, they’d called it, but to her it was anything but. Red and swollen in places, and her mother reminded her often they needed to be massaged with oils if she ever wanted it to get better.

She stopped asking a long while ago if Orma wanted her to do it for her.

“My Orma,” Athan breathed, and air caught in her lungs because he’d never said her name like that. He was always so careful, didn’t want her to feel presumed upon, never laid his own claim.

The bond flared.

The pulse thrumming through her blood along with it.

And suddenly the touches were not enough and too much all at once. Because they weren’t right, and he wasn’t as overcome as she was, and that was unbearable.

She sat up, and Athan looked at her in alarm, and Orma did not quite recognise herself as she pushed him onto his back. His head wasn’t on the pillows, and that should matter, but what seemed of far great import was getting this clothing off of him.

And, for that matter, the rest of her nightdress. It was caught about her hips, and she was kneeling on the bed rather than standing properly on the floor, but she shimmied out of it anyway, tossing the garment wherever it pleased as it landed.

He opened his mouth, likely to ask if she was all right again, but she halted him by leaning down and kissing him soundly. No more distractions. No more teasing and exploring while he was neglected.

She did not care what he said. He might derive great satisfaction from caring for his patients, for tending to her every need, but it could not possibly follow that he had none of his own.

“My Athan,” she murmured into his ear, her voice low. She smiled to herself when he swallowed, and it was his turn for his hands to clutch at the bedclothes as she went back to the knots at his shoulders. His cuffs. They yielded to her touch this time, now that she knew what she was doing wrong. And if she’d been bold enough, she would have suggested they do this standing, because there was little enticing about the awkward manoeuvring of cloth, either down hips that had to rise and lower, or over wings that did not want to be bothered so.

But he’d managed it. And if she felt a little silly, and not at all as comely as he had been while he’d undressed her, then she would make up for it with kisses.

His wrist.

Right above his elbow.

The curve of his shoulder.

His throat.

While he was left to struggle not to reach for her. To hold on to her hips and let her attend to one side, then the other.

It was easier for her. The threads told her where to go, and she had only to follow. To let her heart warm to him, to excite him with her lips and her touch as he’d done to her.

She’d left the laces of his trousers alone, and she could admit a sort of nervousness about it. It wasn’t fear—she banished that thought entirely. But it was new, and she was not nearly as familiar with a body as he was, and males were built strangely. Not that she would ever say so to the Maker directly in a prayer, but perhaps in the privacy of her own thoughts when her mother had tried to explain it to her.

Tucked neatly away until their services were required, she’d said, her lips tight and her eyes away from her daughter’s.

She was no girl any longer. She was a woman who wanted her mate, and she would not grow silly and anxious over something as inconsequential as laces on trousers.

She did not lie over him as he’d done with her. Did not trail kisses across his torso, although she could plainly see where the bond nestled.

She was growing impatient while he was lying there, seemingly content just to watch her.

She took a breath. Reached for the bond as well as his laces, and found the comfort she needed. She was doing fine. More than fine. He was so pleased he was near to bursting with it, and he wanted to touch, to pull, to bring them together, but he was restrained. For her. To let her have her fun, to be pliant and amiable to her whims.

It didn’t mean she had to look. She didn’t know how she’d feel if he stared at her most intimate places—most especially if he’d be thinking of others he’d seen, despite the context differing vastly than his time with her.

She compromised by tugging the legs off him, wondering if he’d mind if she tossed them away as she’d done her shift, or if that would seem insulting. He hadn’t complained about the shirt, so she did not bother with ceremony, and dropped it off the side of the bed.

“You are beautiful,” Athan observed, and she sat back on her heels, wondering why he might say such a thing. Her bad hip was in plain view. The sutures they’d used made a pale zigzag across the curve that should have been smooth and lovely. She hadn’t brushed her hair before she’d gone to find him.

Orma blinked, glancing down at herself. She was too thin, but even so, there were little rolls of softened flesh that surely were not beautiful.

She opened her mouth to give her objections. To list all the things she found to be quite the opposite.

Then closed it again.

He thought her beautiful. Scars and all.

She felt a wave of tenderness for him, and she forgot about the rest of it. About laces and undressing and explorations as she stretched herself over him, holding him to her as best she could. Which really was an entirely new level of indecency if she took the time to think of it, but she didn’t. “Thank you,” she murmured, her voice a little smaller than it had been, and for entirely different reasons. Her mother had taught her to be polite, to accept compliments without fuss.

His arms came about her, and her skin prickled with awareness. To be touched all over, all at once. For it to feel so strange and so right, for skin to press against skin. To open her eyes and peek at the threads that fused and merged, settling together.

She gripped him tighter and tried to contain the sudden burst of emotions. He smoothed her hair behind her ear, trying to coax her up so she might look at him. “What happened?” Athan asked, his thumb making slow patterns across her cheek. He was searching her eyes rather than the bond, as if he wanted her to answer on her own.

Her throat ached, and the delightful sensations she’d experienced had quieted under the flux of her own feelings, but that was all right. They’d come back with a little attention, she was certain. “You think I’m beautiful,” she confessed, embarrassed she needed to explain, but wanting to be honest with him. “And I think you mean it.”

He smiled, but it was tight about the edges. “I do,” he promised her. He was quiet for a moment, which allowed her to settle, to sigh, to feel what he must have before, certain if he began petting her hair, she would fall asleep just like this, sprawled out on top of him like a living blanket. But instead, he delved, bringing her attention back to him. “Was that truly one of your worries? That I would find you somehow... lacking?”

She did not know how to answer that. It was, but that wasn’t the whole of it. It was more that she’d been certain he’d find all of her lacking, the very circumstances of their mating, the limitations of what she might give him, whether in his home, or in his bed, or the children they would never have. Her marred sort of beauty felt very far down the list until suddenly they were undressing and he was so...

“Yes,” she answered simply, refusing to bring the rest of her insecurities into the bed with them. “Most especially since I find you the handsomest man I have ever met.”

He gave a sort of derisive snort, and Orma suddenly found it much easier to prop up against his chest to look at him. “You do not believe me?”

His expression gentled, and he cupped her cheek and looked at her so tenderly she felt those little flutters spark to life once more. “I believe you,” he soothed. “I simply think when we venture out into the world, you will not give away such praise so readily.”

Orma frowned. “I said it, and I meant it,” she groused, worried this would descend into a quarrel, and that was the last thing she wanted. He thought her beautiful, she thought him handsome. It did not matter if there was anyone else more so. They’d been made for each other, and they found one another pleasing, and that settled the matter.

“Of course,” Athan allowed, his hand moving from her cheek to her shoulder. Then down her back. He skimmed his fingers where her wings met skin, down her spine to her lower back. “Still bothered?” he asked, his voice lower than it had been before.

She bit her lip, and nodded, gratified her assumption had been right and her interest could not be so easily diminished.

Athan hummed, and his other hand came to meet the other, embracing her at first, then coming to her waist. She did not understand his intent at first, but then she flushed all over as he helped her sit.

On top of him.

There was no mistaking the greedy look in his eye as he watched her, his attention lingering on her too-small breasts as if they were the most interesting thing in the world at the moment. Which was silly, but also true, and baffling how endearing she found it.

His hands moved of their own accord, down her from her waist to her hips. Rubbing at the scars, massaging a little harder when he felt the twist of tissue. It felt... good. Attentive. Sent little sparks through her limbs, settling down low.

She liked the view of him this way. Liked the way his chest felt beneath her hands as she smoothed her palms against his skin. He was warm, and it drew her nearer. To lean over him and, yes, grow briefly distracted by how it made her feel to rub against him so. He smelled lightly of the soap he’d used to wash before bed, and whatever else made up him.

His hands moved from her hips down her thighs, squeezing into the softness he found there. “I should like to touch you again.” It flustered her for him to speak of that, for his admissions to be easy, while hers felt like a very great struggle when he coaxed them from her.

She swallowed, not wanting to be the silent observer. The sickly creature that sat to the sides of the fetes, watching the others as they danced.

Perhaps she could not dance with her mate, but she could do this. Have this. Love and be loved.

“I would like that,” she whispered, and maybe it did not cost her as much as she thought to tell him so.

She shifted, and she wished she could say it was because she was trying to grant him easier access, but her hip gave a twinge of warning about how she was settled on top of him. She tried to keep her movements subtle, and most certainly keep the discomfort from her face, but Athan noticed. Of course he did.

She did not have time to fear he’d put a stop to everything. Would brew a tincture and tuck her into bed and insist she go to sleep.

Instead, he flipped them over, easing her onto her back and pressing his weight back on top of her, searching her face as he massaged her hip. “Better?” he asked, his hand moving from the scars to the point he’d found just above the bone that pleased her so well.

No fuss. Just a quick adapting so they might proceed.

“Better,” she agreed, and looped her arms about his neck and kissed him. She did not mean to hold him so tightly, nor for the kiss to go on for so long, but she could not say she regretted it. Not when he groaned into her mouth, when he met her fervour and her relief with equal enthusiasm.

It somehow helped to be positioned so. For hands to explore without watchful eyes to see or judge. He delved first, which should not have surprised her. Not when he was brave and she most decidedly wasn’t. In between them, no longer with cloth to act as a barrier.

At his first, tentative touch, her breath caught. When he nudged her legs apart and she let him open her, a strange sort of sound came unbidden. Not a whimper, not a groan, but somewhere in between.

She was surrounded by him. By his weight on top of her, by the warmth of his skin. By the fingers that were intent on learning her most intimate places. He might examine others. Might help usher their babies into the world. Might dress and treat a wound.

But this was utterly hers.

The way he caught each of her gasps. Every involuntary twitch of her muscles as he nudged inward, the way made far easier than she might have supposed by her own interest. It should have felt intrusive. Made her squirm for the oddness of the sensation, to feel full in a way she had never thought herself empty.

But it was Athan, and his breath was warm as he panted against her shoulder, his eyes tightly shut as he seemed to work terribly hard at mastering himself.

She’d done that.

Or... they’d done that. With a few kisses. A few removed clothes. And suddenly she could see the last tendrils of his patience. When he brought his mouth back to hers, when he asked without words.

For her touch. For her to move. To do anything at all.

Why was that so much harder? To fear she was doing wrong, that she would seem ignorant and inexperienced, without even medical training to guide the way, if only in a rudimentary form.

But this was Athan, and he needed her.

She took a breath, and it was full of him, and the world felt suddenly smaller. Stuck to the confines of her bed. Their bed. To what they were making inside of it.

Her hands stroked down his back, and he shuddered over her. Such a simple thing, but it could affect him so.

It would be so easy to get lost in her own feelings. To the persistent touches, the stretch and pull, the fervent pulses that threatened to take the last of her wits and turn her mind to nothing else.

She needed to do this first, though. Of that, she was determined. She wouldn’t be selfish, wouldn’t forget him as she got lost in her own pleasures. Orma reached down, wondering at her mother’s words about insides and outsides and how men and women differed once they were ready to celebrate the bond.

She swallowed thickly as she found him, not neatly tucked away as she’d expected, but firm to her touch and ready. Athan’s own touch wavered. Retreated.

His kisses, too.

And it might have frightened her, might have made her pull away and ask if she’d done something wrong, if perhaps he did not like to be touched there after all. Except the bond was strong and steady, the threads almost blinding in the lamplight as they thrilled and danced, securing them together in ways she hadn’t known they needed.

“Are you all right?” Orma asked, feeling the length of him, careful to keep her touch gentle. She wouldn’t hurt him. She must be careful, just as he was with her. She let her hand retreat, and suddenly Athan could breathe again, his eyes opening to give her a sheepish glance.

“Utterly bothered,” he insisted, and she had to smile because he was kissing her again, and perhaps he was afraid as she was. How was one generous enough with such matters? To focus on loving the other while receiving what the other wished to give?

“I want to be good at this,” Orma confessed, smoothing her fingers down the length of him again, watching his throat bob as he swallowed thickly at such a simple gesture. Hers was the easier job, she decided. Since his parts could come to the outside, while he had to venture inward to find her greatest delights.

Athan chuckled, more breath than sound. “I have no complaints,” he promised her, kissing her lips and then her cheek, his voice strained even as he was careful to be tender with her as he eased back into her.

“But I will admit to a certain thrill at the prospect of practicing.”

She hummed, and then it was abruptly ended when he found some other part inside of her, one that sent bright little spots to her vision as he pressed. “Why was I afraid of this?” Orma whispered, not necessarily referring to the appendage currently subjected to her modest inspection, but all of it. Mating. His body on hers. She’d thought herself somehow removed, as if it might affect other people, but not her. She was wrong. Wonderfully so.

“Because you didn’t know it would be with me,” Athan reminded her, his lips just beneath her ear as he leaned in closed and nudged his face against hers.

She smiled and ignored the rest of it. How resistant she’d been and yes, still frightened.

But not now. When he was coaxing and plying and her hand fell away from him because she really could not focus properly when he seemed determined to draw all of her attention to what was happening between her legs.

She gasped. Wriggled. And his lips found the twist of bond beneath her throat and then he pressed his teeth lightly just there, and he had no business biting at her like that, and she certainly had no business liking it so well that everything tightened and lurched all at once and...

The bond glowed. She didn’t know how she saw it, her eyes too tightly shut as she was lost in the newness. So perhaps she simply felt it along with everything else.

It was sharp and twisting, and it was pleasure too, but it wasn’t satisfaction. Not entirely. Because she could feel Athan’s want, feel there was more, and when everything settled back into place, when he eased his fingers from her, she was the one to reach. To bring him toward her. To whisper she was ready, that she loved him, that she needed him.

And she felt his shudder, felt his restraint as he considered, and she couldn’t understand what he was waiting for. She was open and ready, and her hip wasn’t being nearly as troublesome as it might have been, and...

Her hand went to the back of his neck and she rubbed lightly. “Be with me,” she urged, and that was enough, because he was pushing—no, not pushing. Easing. Always careful, because this was unfamiliar, and her muscles were untried, but the way was easier than she expected.

A little slick. Warm. Full. While Athan shuddered, his eyes closed as he wrestled, both with the bond and the sensations that were just as new to him. And she was happy she was present enough she could cup his cheek. Could lean forward just a bit and kiss wherever she could reach. Until he murmured something in her ear and the angle shifted, and there was that spot again, the one he’d found before, this time rubbed and stroked while Athan felt his own pleasures.

It was so much... more. Bright and shiny, and she tried to keep her eyes open. To see the threads as they tangled and fused, twisting together in a glorious harmony.

But her body seemed to have a will all its own, and her eyes fluttered closed, and Athan was finally certain of her comfort enough to move in earnest. She loved him for his care, but she loved him for his confidence as well. He did not carry worry around with him like an old friend. He did not dwell on his misgivings.

“I love you,” she managed, because she remembered that was important. That he needed to hear it.

That she needed to say it.

Even with the bond swelling between them. When they touched all over, here and clasping one of his, her other buried in the hair at the nape of his neck.

He did not answer her, but he shifted again, this time wrapping his arms around her back and holding her impossibly closer while he buried his face in her neck. Her hair. While he mumbled something that held all the cadence of a prayer.

And maybe words failed him, but the bond didn’t. He pushed all of his love back toward her. Held her safely, made promises that didn’t require speech at all.

He would care for her the whole of his days. He would love her as best he knew how. He would give her anything she wanted. She had only to name it.

Her eyes grew misty, and it was all too much and not enough all at once. The feel of his skin against her, the tenderness of her feelings toward him. The steady stroke of his hips pressing against hers. Holding. Waiting. Then moving again when she was ready for him. When it pleased her.

Because he was paying attention.

Could not focus solely on his own pleasures, and they would have to work on that, because his were no less important than hers, and she’d already had some and yet...

Her hand moved from his neck to stroke along the edges of his wings. To the feathers she would have to help him tend in the spring months.

His movements stuttered. Almost halted, and then he was kissing her again. Distracting her from her explorations, which really was rude of him, but it was a complaint for another time, another moment, one when she could think and speak and there was more than this returning coil that promised her another release if only... if he’d...

She couldn’t say what changed. How his movements shifted. If it was something he did, or merely a shared feeling that grew and fed from the other until she was tumbling. No longer alone, but together. Always. When his pleasure became hers, when he grew still and she could only hold him as best she could, her legs clamping around him and holding him to her in ways that were highly indecent.

She didn’t care. Couldn’t care. The world felt different. She felt different. As if... as if parts of her that had been uncertain and doubtful were suddenly still. Quiet.

She was a mate. A proper one. Christened and everything.

She could please him, whether with a gentle word or by accepting his touches. By returning them when he’d let her and didn’t start seeing to her instead.

And there was the relief that came with it, all in a rush that left her gasping, first with something that felt too near to tears, then with laughter. Was surely worse, but it was bright and bubbly, and she was happy, and Athan was looking at her as if she’d grown a second head, and that made it harder to stop.

“And what amuses you so?” Athan asked, and while his tone was light, his eyes were worried, and Orma reached for him and pulled him back, kissing him all over. Because she wouldn’t have him cross, not when she felt so light. As if something had loosened inside of her. As if she could finally take a full breath after a lifetime of restriction.

Was that the bond? Or simply the nature of letting go. Of release.

“That I could be a fussy, ridiculous girl who was afraid of that . And that we get to do it whenever we please.”

He settled down beside her on the bed, and that was much too far. And he couldn’t be too cross at her laughter because he pulled her to him, tucking her into his side and holding her there while she nestled as close as she wanted. Modesty seemed like a part of the old her. The one that cared about decorum and what anyone might think if they saw them in such states. Or maybe those thoughts would trickle back in, once the hazy glow left her mind and strength came back to her limbs.

But for now, she let herself not care. Not about the blankets that would need to be taken to the laundry. Not the late hour and how important sleep was for her regimen. Although now that she considered it, sleep did sound like just the thing she wanted most. And perhaps something to eat. But not if it meant moving to get one.

“I want to stay just like this,” Orma continued, brushing her lips against his chest simply because she could.

“That would be rather cold come winter,” Athan teased. “I would have to build you a hearth.”

She hummed, feeling languid and happier than she could ever remember. It wasn’t simply because of their relations, surely. It was more than that. Or maybe it was all tied up together. That the bond was somehow renewed by their closeness. Bright and bold, their feelings flowing easily between the two of them, and she did not have to wonder if Athan was just as pleased.

She could know.

“It would be worth it,” Orma teased, skimming her fingers across the planes of his torso. Watched as his muscles clenched, his skin prickled. All because of a few brushes of her fingertips.

“Are you attempting to seduce me?” Athan queried, his fingers burying in her hair as he gently pulled her head up to look at him. “Already?”

He abandoned her hair in favour of running his hand down her arm, then boldly setting it on her backside. “Have I neglected you so completely?”

Orma ducked her head and refused to let the niggling concerns take hold—that she was greedy and ungrateful when he’d already pleased her so well.

“Can’t I touch you with no need for something?” she asked, genuinely curious. She’d keep that in mind if it troubled him. Or if it bothered him and not in the pleasant way he’d done to her.

She felt the very edges of a purr deep in his chest rumbling against her ear. And she thought it beautiful. Thought him rather beautiful, too, although she supposed that was not a compliment most men would appreciate.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You can do whatever you like.”

Which should not have pleased her so, yet it did. Because he meant it. Whatever made her happy, that was fine with him. She would not abuse such power, of course. Wouldn’t wheedle or ask for anything too extravagant. But the idea of a hearth in their bedroom wasn’t a bad one, and what did he do for heat in the coldest months?

“Now,” Athan moved, which was not at all what she wanted. Most especially when it felt very much like he was trying to get up. “Wash separately or together?”

Orma blinked at him, still trying to keep him in place as her pillow. “We washed before bed,” she reminded him, in case their activities had addled his mind and he’d truly forgotten.

“We did,” he agreed. “And then we did not sleep.” She had. For quite a while. He’d been the one to abandon her.

She glanced down at herself, trying to catch his point. Some of the warm feelings were diminishing, and she was more aware of the cold pricking at her skin, of the sticky feeling between her legs.

“Oh.”

It was Athan’s turn to chuckle as he helped her to her feet. “I choose together,” he added with a smile, and waited for her to give an objection.

She did not have one to give.

Just took his hand and let him move them to the washroom. Tried not to cross her arms and feel strange as she waited for him to tend the light. A proper moonstone lamp would be good for this room. That way, when she scuttled down the hall in the dark, she would not be met with inky darkness.

When the wick caught and warm light cast eerie shadows across the washroom walls, Orma swallowed thickly. She’d ask for a lamp when she was certain it wouldn’t overtax his income. She’d even ask to attend the market with him so she might know who crafted such things.

She would mention how agreeable something to nibble would be. And a fresh nightdress, and if he wasn’t too cold, how she would not mind if he forewent a nightshirt. She did so like the feel of his skin...

But for the moment, she stepped nearer to him and wrapped her arms about him. It was strange to need an embrace so acutely when they’d just shared so much, but perhaps that was part of the reason.

“What’s this for?” Athan asked, returning her embrace and tightening his hold when she did the same.

“Just because,” she mumbled into his skin, and she probably should offer more of an explanation. Should try to sort out this sudden urge for affection. To hold and be held. To keep him close and hers for as long as she possibly could.

He hummed. Then purred, the sound pleasant and soothing beneath her ear.

She shut her eyes and let the contentment fill her.

Let him shudder. Let him murmur his thanks for trusting him. For loving him.

She would like to say it had been easy, but it hadn’t been. But perhaps...

Perhaps that was all right. Because now it had been forged with experience rather than faith in the bond alone. That she knew him, and he knew her.

There was more to go, of that she was certain. But it was a start. And a rather lovely one.

“I’m going to learn to cook,” Orma whispered, more to herself than to him. Then turned her head and offered a sheepish look upward. “Would you help me?”

And his smile was bright, and his pride in her was brighter still. “It would be my pleasure.”

And she certainly would not tell anyone, but she let him wash her. And she even mustered some of her courage and washed him in turn, a rather strange process that included having to prod out his appendage when she hadn’t needed to before, and Athan was gracious in her nerves, and he did not even make fun of the way she poked at him while she did it.

And when he picked her up again and took her back to their bed, it did not feel like when she was little and too weak to do it herself. It felt like... like a man who loved his mate. Who wanted to keep her as close as he possibly could. To make sure she was warm and comfortable when he eased back the covers and pulled them over her. When he removed the topmost where they had loved and replaced it with another from his trunk before easing in beside her.

She didn’t mention a moonstone lamp, or a nibble before bed after all.

Instead, she let him pull her into his side. Let him curl about her and whisper how much he loved her, and some of those warm, intoxicating feelings returned. Not insistent and urgent to be fulfilled, but a reminder of what had been. What would be. When she wasn’t so tired, and he had not made commitments to patients the next day.

But that was all right. Just knowing there would be other times.

She forgot the nightdress.

And that was all right, too.